Last Last Last Last Last week's assignment was to write down a family story, hopefully in script-ish format. Well, We have no shortage of those, but none of the are quite that long. Or.. not what I manage to remember.
Most I remember take place at The Cabin.
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The Cabin is a simple enough name for a simple enough place. Easily nearing fifty years old, it was once an old hunter's club. The Mackey Griswold cabin.
The Mackeys and the Griswolds have been friends for so long that we simply call each other cousins most of the time. A good part of the time, I forget we're not related.
It began as wooden cube with no heating, no electricity. Years later, it even got an out-house. It was plastered with guns and pin ups, and still is. Oh, it has grown over the years.
First it was extended, a fireplace added. Next, a kitchen. A second fire place. A garage. A second floor. Electricity, and by the time my Dad can remember, running water. He told me once how he thought it was a horrible idea, how he didn't want it to change. (I had been complaining about the new walls on the tired walls of the second floor)
Its exterior is classic cabin red, its roof shingled grey. Its surrounded by thick old forest, a mile path back to a series of lakes. Cans on strings serve as make shift windchimes, hung on the log shed. an old scythe leans on the shed, a rusty, olive green propane tank is wedged between two enormous pines. Dirt up to the door, with a crumbling concrete step covered in moss. Even removing the door under the kitchen sink, one can easily reach the ground again. The pipes stick out of the hollowed dirt.
Backing up a paragraph, The first Cabin story takes place when Dad was a kid. The youngest of four, but that's not the point. The point is, it was pouring rain outside. Buckets.
I'm willing to bet that the Cabin, like it usually is, was full to the brim of people. Because if there's something the cabin is good at, it's being packed to the brim of Griswolds and Mackeys. (Or not at all, for long, looong stretches of time.) Maybe it was even Thanksgiving- Or I think so because this story resurfaces on Turkey Day.
Anyway, The Cabin, being full to the brim of people, happened to have a pretty good chance of having some of those people pointing in the general direction of its windows. And some of those people eventually noticed it wasn't just buckets of rain and trees outside.
There was also a mother Raccoon, and her babies. Three or four in all, and she was cramming them one by one under The Cabin.The thing with the three or four baby coons was that she never ran out. So long as she was shoving another coon under The Cabin, another was scrambling back out and back into line. As everyone watched, Mama coon kept right on grabbing and shoving, grabbing and shoving.
She quickly became the main show. Buckets of rain or not, she was going to get her kids under that cabin. The baby coons might as well have been giggling along with the onlookers, skittering back into line while Mama Coon's back was turned.
It took over and hour before the gears in Mama Coons little brain started turning. Slowly. I wonder if Coons can count. Soon enough, some twelve hundred babies under the cabin, (according to Coon Math) she stopped and turned to look at her line. Three babies, and another hopping back in line. Back to the hole under The Cabin. Exactly zero of the hundred coons she'd put remained.
Well, Mama Coon said in Coon, Fukallyoo. She crawled under the cabin herself, leaving the babies to attempt to cram themselves in after her.
Most I remember take place at The Cabin.
-----
The Cabin is a simple enough name for a simple enough place. Easily nearing fifty years old, it was once an old hunter's club. The Mackey Griswold cabin.
The Mackeys and the Griswolds have been friends for so long that we simply call each other cousins most of the time. A good part of the time, I forget we're not related.
It began as wooden cube with no heating, no electricity. Years later, it even got an out-house. It was plastered with guns and pin ups, and still is. Oh, it has grown over the years.
First it was extended, a fireplace added. Next, a kitchen. A second fire place. A garage. A second floor. Electricity, and by the time my Dad can remember, running water. He told me once how he thought it was a horrible idea, how he didn't want it to change. (I had been complaining about the new walls on the tired walls of the second floor)
Its exterior is classic cabin red, its roof shingled grey. Its surrounded by thick old forest, a mile path back to a series of lakes. Cans on strings serve as make shift windchimes, hung on the log shed. an old scythe leans on the shed, a rusty, olive green propane tank is wedged between two enormous pines. Dirt up to the door, with a crumbling concrete step covered in moss. Even removing the door under the kitchen sink, one can easily reach the ground again. The pipes stick out of the hollowed dirt.
Backing up a paragraph, The first Cabin story takes place when Dad was a kid. The youngest of four, but that's not the point. The point is, it was pouring rain outside. Buckets.
I'm willing to bet that the Cabin, like it usually is, was full to the brim of people. Because if there's something the cabin is good at, it's being packed to the brim of Griswolds and Mackeys. (Or not at all, for long, looong stretches of time.) Maybe it was even Thanksgiving- Or I think so because this story resurfaces on Turkey Day.
Anyway, The Cabin, being full to the brim of people, happened to have a pretty good chance of having some of those people pointing in the general direction of its windows. And some of those people eventually noticed it wasn't just buckets of rain and trees outside.
There was also a mother Raccoon, and her babies. Three or four in all, and she was cramming them one by one under The Cabin.The thing with the three or four baby coons was that she never ran out. So long as she was shoving another coon under The Cabin, another was scrambling back out and back into line. As everyone watched, Mama coon kept right on grabbing and shoving, grabbing and shoving.
She quickly became the main show. Buckets of rain or not, she was going to get her kids under that cabin. The baby coons might as well have been giggling along with the onlookers, skittering back into line while Mama Coon's back was turned.
It took over and hour before the gears in Mama Coons little brain started turning. Slowly. I wonder if Coons can count. Soon enough, some twelve hundred babies under the cabin, (according to Coon Math) she stopped and turned to look at her line. Three babies, and another hopping back in line. Back to the hole under The Cabin. Exactly zero of the hundred coons she'd put remained.
Well, Mama Coon said in Coon, Fukallyoo. She crawled under the cabin herself, leaving the babies to attempt to cram themselves in after her.
